Month: January 2017

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Don’t Get Thrown for a Loop! PugilistPenguin Covers How to Deal with Street Fighter V’s Throws in This Two Minute Tutorial

While his last defensive episode dealt with blocking incoming attacks, PugilistPenguin’s latest Two Minute Tutorial covers how to combat throws in Street Fighter V. This tutorial covers dealing with techable throws, but the lessons about spacing and looking for your opponent’s movement patterns are also helpful for determining when someone is going for a command throw.

Throw teching, tick throws and shimmies are all covered in these informative two minutes, so this is definitely a tutorial to watch if you struggle with constantly being thrown. With tick throws and shimmies, it’s mainly a matter of proving to an opponent that you know what they are doing and making them realize that the option will not work. From there, defending actually becomes that little bit easier, as you’ve mentally shut down one of an option that an opponent may be using to open you up.

Source: PugilistPenguin

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Immortals Gains Major Investment from Lionsgate, While the Miami HEAT Partners with Misfits

The race to get into esports continues as two major teams receive investments from well-known companies and sports teams. In a statement released today, Immortals has received a major cash injection from broadcasting company Lionsgate, while the Miami HEAT have announced a “strategic partnership” with Misfits.

Lionsgate is no stranger to the world of esports, as they are currently partnered with the ESL and Microsoft to help with the future of competitive Halo, and have previously invested in mobile streaming platform Mobcrush. Talking about the investment, Immortals chairman Clinton Foy said that “what we’re doing today in eSports is like the early days of building the NFL and NBA. It’s not the evolution of games–it’s the evolution of sports, technology and media.” Immortals CEO Noah Whinston added that “Immortals and Lionsgate are both focused on developing new entertainment formats, and we’re thrilled to collaborate with them at the cutting edge of eSports media.”

The Miami HEAT are following the new trend of figures and teams from the NBA-backing esports organizations, with Shaq being a joint owner of NRG Esports, Rick Fox owning Echo Fox–who recently launched a massive FGC offensive–and Renegades being managed by Jonas Jerebko of the Boston Celtics. In a statement released by the Miami HEAT today, the NBA team will assist “in all duties including marketing, branding, promotion, retail, digital and sponsorship activation on behalf of the franchise, and to cross-promote the HEAT and Misfits.” Speaking about this partnership, Misfits CEO Ben Spoont said that “this partnership will be the catalyst and foundation to our continued expansion of the Misfits organization into a global esports brand and company.”

With both Immortals and Misfits currently having a stake in Super Smash Bros. Melee, it stands to reason that both teams will be looking to expand into the greater FGC in the coming months, as seen by the massive landgrabs made by Echo Fox. As the esports landscape becomes full of these household names, you can expect to see more players breaking off from traditional FGC sponsors to ally behind the big bucks and brand recognition of teams like Echo Fox, Immortals and so on.

Sources: Variety; The Miami HEAT

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It’s the USA vs. Japan vs. the Rest of the World: Genesis 4’s Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Crew Battles

With representatives from all around the world converging on San Jose next week for the beginning of 2017’s Smash season, international pride is on the line as countries compete to see who is the best Smash playing nation. With USA and Japan acting as the two juggernauts going into Genesis 4, the rest of the world has banded together to form one super team, made up of players from Mexico, Canada, and Europe to take down the forces of East and West.

This world crew battle will start as a 10vs10 round robin, with the top two teams going through to face off against each other in a final 12vs12 show match, where all 12 players from the winning region get paid out. If it is anything like the crew battles that took place at The Big House 6, it will make for absolutely essential viewing.

Each crew is stacked with killers and with Japan competing as its own nation, rather than just being counted as “the World,” the event will be closer than ever. While I should back my fellow Europeans–gutted I’m not on the reserve list–my gut feeling is the finals will be Japan vs. the USA. You can check out the entire team rosters on smash.gg and prepare to wave your country’s flag next weekend.

Sources: BearUNLV; smash.gg

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Wizard101 – Ghulture Culture

KingsIsle decided to kick off 2017 with a bang by introducing a brand new hoard pack to Wizard101. Inspired by Mirage, the Ghulture’s Hoard Pack is any desert lover’s dream.

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– For Honor to Go to CBT on January 26th

Ubisoft has sent out a new For Honor trailer to let fans know that the closed beta will kick off on January 26th. Interested folks can head to the For Honor site to sign up for a chance to win a spot in the CBT and to compete in the War of the Factions for special rewards.

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The King of Fighters XIV’s Graphical Update Patch is Now Available for Download

The King of Fighters XIV 1.10 patch is now available for download on PlayStation 4. For those who haven’t been following the news, this patch is the long-awaited graphical overhaul.

The patch, which weighs in at 3.7 GB, updates the game’s lighting and shading engine, and updates some effects and models for certain moves and characters. In addition to this, it will also add 2 new colors for each of the game’s characters.

As for the game’s balance, SNK’s Hidetoshi “Neo_G” Ishizawa has already confirmed that the update will not contain any balance changes for the characters.

For those who haven’t purchased The King of Fighters XIV but want to try it out with the updated graphics, a demo featuring said updates is currently available for download on the Asian PlayStation Network.

Source: PlayStation Network